USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Walks & talks about historic Boston > Part 30
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"What anvils rang, what hammers beat
In what a forge, and what a heat Were shaped the anchors of thy hope!"
The manager, Deacon Samuel Hill, was one of the best men and most highly respected citizens of South Boston. His heart and his purse were open to every good and worthy object. On the water side of Dorchester Avenue, about mid- way between Broadway and Washington Village, were lo- cated the Wire Works, which were founded and carried on for many years by the Hon. Henry S. Washburn. Here were manufactured many thousand miles of wire for telegraph and
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other purposes. The high flame of the works, throwing its glare over the city night after night, always attracted the attention of the visiting stranger. The manufacture of wire was a novel and interesting spectacle to the onlooker. The iron, red hot, was hammered into bars, and then, by several processes, drawn into wires of the required size.
The largest manufacturing establishment in the ward in those days was The South Boston Iron Works, under the
Cyrus Alger
management of Cyrus Alger, the originator and principal proprietor, who was in many respects a most remarkable man. No man did more for the development and best interests of South Boston than Mr. Alger.
He gave freely of his time, his counsel and his money to advance its interests. It was largely through his influence that many important industries were located there. His foundry was one of the most perfect iron establishments in the United States, and he was acknowledged to be one of the. best iron metallurgists of his day.
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By a method entirely his own, he succeeded in so purifying cast iron as to give it more than triple the strength of ordinary cast iron, removing the impurities from the metal while in a fluid state, and causing it to be much more dense, and this gave him great advantage over other iron founders. It also gave him superior skill in the manufacture of cannon, and for many years he made guns for the United States Govern- ment, and his guns sustained the most extraordinary endur- ance, when subject to extreme proof. As a citizen he was uni- versally beloved, and he enjoyed the full confidence of his fellow citizens, who looked up to him as a person to whom they could safely entrust their interests. His kindness to the men in his employ was proverbial, and he often kept men on half pay, when their services were not needed, to prevent the pecuniary distress which would be caused by a discharge.
THE GLOBE LOCOMOTIVE WORKS
were on the corner of A and First Streets, and were started in 1846. Four years later Mr. John Souther, became sole proprietor.
Mr. Souther was born and educated in South Boston and lived there more than half of his life. He entered the old Hawes School, the year it was opened. At 14 years of age he commenced his apprenticeship as a carpenter and a cabinet maker. He spent some years in Cuba as draughtsman and pattern maker for sugar mill machinery. He entered the employ of the Hinckley Locomotive Works and made every drawing and pattern of all the locomotives they produced. As proprietor of the Globe Locomotive Works he made over 600 locomotives, and other important and up-to-date machinery and also made steam shovels for constructing roads, and these latter were used by nearly all the railroads in the United States and Canada. In 1849 some of his locomotives were shipped to California around Cape Horn.
One institution in South Boston has achieved more than na- tional fame, and such has been its great work in the ameliora- tion of conditions of hundreds of this deeply afflicted class that it is worthy of more than a passing notice.
The idea of a school for the blind may be said to have originated in an Act of the Legislature in 1829, incorpo- rating the "New England Asylum of the Blind." Soon
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after the passage of this act, Dr. Samuel G. Howe was despatched to Europe to visit the various institutions for the blind in that part of the world, and to gather from them such information as would be necessary to establish a similar institution in Boston. In 1832 he returned, ac- companied by a most accomplished young blind man, who was well versed in the classics, in history, in mathematics and knew the secret of being able to impart his knowledge.
Perkins Institution for the Blind
In the organization of this great philanthropic work, Dr. Samuel G. Howe was the leading spirit and tireless worker. He gave to it all the brightness of his keen intellect, all the impulses of his great tender heart. The blind of his day and of all generations will rise up to call him blessed. The grow- ing needs of the institution were met in 1839 when they acquired possession of the Mount Washington House on Broadway, South Boston. It was erected in 1838 by some wealthy men of Boston, who believed that South Boston was destined to be the aristocratic section of the city and they saw a good speculation in the erection of a magnificent Hotel. The Warren Association as they were known, con- menced running a line of coaches from the Old State House ro the Hotel, charging twenty-five cents a fare, which was
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afterwards reduced to six cents. But the Hotel did not pay and the money was lost. The Trustees of the Institution for the Blind were offered this Hotel property in exchange for the estate on Pearl Street.
Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe
The removal of the establishment to South Boston pre- sented the opportunity of connecting the name of Mr. Per- kins perpetually with the Institution, and accordingly a vote of the Corporation changed the name to that of the "Perkins Institution and Massachusetts Asylum for the Blind."
Intimately associated with the name of this Institution is that of Laura Bridgman, whose peculiar condition, as regards the loss of bodily senses, attracted the attention and awakened
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the sympathy of the humane through the whole civilized world. From earliest childhood she was entirely blind, deaf and dumb and almost deprived of the sense of smell.
In a published statement Dr. Howe gives in detail a most interesting account of the methods employed in teaching her to read and to communicate her own thoughts to others. For a while the process was purely mechanical. She sat in mute amazement and patiently imitated everything her teacher did; but soon the truth began to flash upon her, her intellect began to work, she perceived that there was a way by which she could herself make up a sign of anything that was in her own mind and show to another mind and at once her countenance lighted up with a human expression. It was an immortal spirit eagerly seizing upon a new link of union with other spirits! The Perkins Institution for the Blind will stand a lasting monument to the energy, the devo- tion, the genius and the broad humanitarianism of Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe. At the memorial exercises in honor of Dr. Howe, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes paid him the following beautiful tribute :
"No trustier service claimed the wreath, For Sparta's bravest son, No truer soldier sleeps beneath, The mound of Marathon.
Yet not for him the warrior's grave, In front of angry foes, To lift, to shield, to help, to save The holier task he chose.
He touched the eyelids of the blind, And, lo, the veil withdrawn; As o'er the midnight of the mind, He led the light of dawn!
Dr. Howe left an able successor in Michael Anagnos wlio married his eldest daughter Julia.
EDUCATION IN SOUTH BOSTON.
The early settlers of South Boston believed in education and in 1807 they sent a petition to the School Committee, praying for an appropriation for a school, but no attention
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was paid to the petition. The town then took the matter up and authorized an appropriation of $300 and the citizens of South Boston subscribed an additional amount and a school building was erected on G Street and this was the first school house in the ward. Mr. Toomey in his excellent history of South Boston, gives the following description of this building, a simple and primitive affair compared with
MU-PPA!
Hawes Grammar School in 1850
our modern school buildings. It was more like the "little red school house" of song and story.
He says: "The school room was peculiarly arranged. From wall to wall ran a long desk and at this sat the first and second classes. To reach the seats, the children were obliged to climb over the desk itself. At the further end was the master's desk elevated about three feet. From this desk running from east to west, were several shorter desks and couches. There was a narrow aisle running the entire length of the building, in the centre of which was the stove.
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The short cross seats and desks were occupied by the girls of the school and the boys of the lower classes. In 1821 the citizens petitioned for a new school house. The an- nexation act of South Boston (Mattapanock) to Boston, provided that the land proprietors should set apart three lots of land, for a market place, or school house and a burial place. The lot for a market place was deeded to the town' by Mr. John Hawes. The citizens of South Boston owe the memory of this good man a great debt of gratitude for his many noble and generous gifts. There being no demand at that time for a market place he granted permission that the land donated by him could be used for the erection of a school house and here was erected the Hawes School Build- ing. The Hawes School was established in 1823 and after considerable delay the city erected the present brick build- ing. It was in this school that the teaching of music in the public schools was first established, and this was largely brought about through the efforts and liberality of Mr. Noah Brooks, a public spirited citizen of the ward.
"When the Hawes School was ready for occupancy the pupils of the school on G street, headed by their teacher, the Rev. Lemuel Capen, marched to the new house and were addressed by the Rev. John Pierpont, pastor of the Hollis Street Church and a member of the Boston School Commit- tee. Since that day it has had many famous masters and teachers, who have been loved and revered by their pupils and respected by all who knew them. It was given up as a grammar school in 1859, but the old building is standing, now nearly 100 years old, a prominent and familiar landmark, near the head of Broadway. It is now a primary school. The grad- uates of the old Hawes School were scattered far and wide, many of them became famous in their several lines and use- ful in their day and generation, and all had pleasurable memories of their alma mater. An Association of Hawes School boys and of the girls also was formed many years ago and hold annual gatherings. Today there is a great and crowded population in South Boston and there are many large and modern temples of education scattered all over the ward. A recent addition is the South Boston High School, on Dorchester Heights on the site of the old reser- voir, a most elegant and up-to-date school house with its gymnasium, drill room and assembly room with a seating capacity of 1000 and there are practically ten class rooms on
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the first floor. Today there are 20 public school houses in the ward and two parochial schools with an enrollment of over 12,000 in the public schools and 2000 in the parochial schools.
THE SOUTH END OF BOSTON
In the early history of the town, the South End com- prised all the territory south of Union Street. The main portion of that territory is now the business section of the city. Until 1804 the only thoroughfare from Essex Street to Dover Street was Washington Street. In that year a corporation, known as the Front Street Company, was organized for the purpose of enlarging the limits of Boston. The first improvement was the construction of a street running parallel with Washington Street, as far south as Dover. It was completed in 1805 and called Front Street. In 1841 the name was changed to Harrison Avenue in honor of President Harrison. The Company did not fill in the flats between Harrison Avenue and Washington Street, this was left for the owners to do, and was completed in 1830, and this improvement added to the area of the city nine acres of land suitable for building lots. At that time, what was known as Boston Neck, extended from Beach Street to Dedham Street. The greatest growth of the South End dates back to 1833, when the South Cove Com- pany was incorporated. It was an auxiliary enterprise to the Boston and Worcester Railroad Company for the pur- pose of giving terminal and yard facilities to the latter. The railroad company agreed to buy a large amount of land and to establish and maintain its terminals thereon, forever. By 1836 the South Cove Company had purchased seventy-three acres of land and had invested $300,000. Material for filling these flats was brought chiefly in boats from the company's gravel pits in Roxbury and Dorchester. The filling was completed in November, 1839, and thus seventy-three acres more were added to the area of the city. The company also began the construction of the United States Hotel on Beach Street, and this undertaking during the strenuous days of the 1837 panic, very nearly wrecked the whole enterprise. The agent of the South Cove Com- pany at that time cited as a sign of hope, the fact that "the Worcester Railroad now transported about 100 passengers daily." This expansion of the city's area went on for over
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30 years. Towards the end of the sixties, Shawmut Avenue was extended from Dover Street to the Roxbury line. In 1836, Tremont Street, then known as Common Street, was extended from Pleasant Street to the Roxbury line. For many years Chickering's Piano Forte Factory was the most prominent landmark of the extreme South End. There were but few dwelling houses in its vicinity. Columbus Avenue was not completed until 1871. In 1830 three and three-quarter acres of marshland between Shawmut Avenue and Tremont Street sold for $269.80, or a little over one and a half cents per square foot, for land now assessed at $1.50 per square foot or about 1000 times its original cost." With the filling in of the flats, the streets of the South End were all regularly drawn at right angles. A large circular place was left, which the Committee having the work in charge said would be an ornamental park to be known as Columbia Square. The Columbia Square is now known as Blackstone and Franklin Squares, between Brookline and Newton Streets. Albany Street was laid out and a large amount was filled in southeast of that street. Some of the older citizens will remember a large agricultural fair that was held on the grounds some time in the Fifties. It was like a County Fair in the country, as there were many exhibits of live- stock, horses, cattle, etc. Before Tremont Street was laid out Charles Street was the boundary line of Boston in that direction. Pleasant Street took a roundabout course from Park Square to Washington Street. There were two small streets off of it. Marion and Fayette-which ended at a body of water, where boats and fishermen were often seen. When Columbus Avenue was laid out, it was considered one of the finest avenues in the country. It was lined with fine residences, and here were the homes of many wealthy and influential citizens. It was intended that the Avenue should become a second Beacon Street. Dr. Bundy gives the names and residences at the South End of many old time and well known Bostonians in 1876. He says at : No. 302 Columbus Avenue, was Dr. Conrad Wesselhoeft : 304 Charles W. Slack, editor of "The Commonwealth; 325 Napoleon B. Bryant, Attorney-at-Law : 364 Franklin Snow, the well known fish dealer : 353 Alfred A. Mudge ; 404 Moses Merrill : 434 Silas Pierce, Jr. : 438 John C. Haynes of Oliver Ditson & Co .; 504 Rev. George C. Lorimer, Pastor Tremont Temple Church : 508 John A. Ordway : 510 Lansing Millis
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of Oak Grove Farm : 518 Hon. A. W. Beard, Collector of Port of Boston : 528 Rev. A. A. Miner, Pastor Columbus Avenue Universalist.
Berwick Park was opened in 1869, and here lived J. B. Holden and Seth A. Fowle.
On Chandler Street, George W. Blatchford, Treasurer of the Boston Museum, Carl Zerrahn, leader of the Handel and Haydn Society, and A. M. McPhail, Piano Forte Manufacturer.
Massachusetts Avenue is a pleasant street ninety feet wide. and runs across the city from Dorchester Five Corners to Harvard Bridge, crossing Commonwealth Avenue, five blocks west of the Hotel Vendome. For many years after it was laid out (1873) it was known east of Washington street as Chester Park. Between Tremont Street and Shawmut Avenue, it broadens into a modest park of one and one- third acres: this was originally known as Chester Square and was a very exclusive and fashionable section of the city. We recall a number of old time residents from Harrison Avenue to Columbus Avenue : Rev. C. D. Bradley, Thomas Riley, the lawyer: John Ritchie. James I. Wingate: C. A. Richards, A. A. Rannel, Thomas B. Wales, H. L. Hallett, Azel Dearborn, Aquila Adams, Samuel D. Crane, Brice S. Evans. Osborn Howes, William G. Ladd, Samuel C. Shap- leigh, Wm. P. Tenney, George D. Baldwin, Wm. E. Baker. Nathan Crowell, W. R. Carnes, Mr. Whittier, Dexter H. Follett. Charles O. Rogers, James Fiske, Jr., Mr. Trull. Richard Hapgood. Mr. Allen, Mr. Blanchard, Rev. Dr. Gan- nett. Sylvester Bowman, Dr. Nichols, Rev. Mr. Atherton, A. N. Cook. Gen. Nathaniel Wales, Stephen Smith.
In 1872 Waltham Street was a comparatively new thor- oughfare and was wholly occupied by well to do families from end to end: there were 40 heads of families who lived on that street, among them Doctors Albert Day, G. T. Per- kins, J. B. Coolidge and F. H. Brown. There was also Ben- jamin Lang, the father of B. J. Lang, the musician.
Boston Common
TABLET. THIS TRACT OF LAND CONTAINING NEARLY FIFTY ACRES WAS BOUGHT IN 1634 BY GOVERNOR WINTHROP AND OTHERS FROM WILLIAM BLACKSTONE AND WAS SET ASIDE FOR COMMON USE AS A COW PASTURE AND TRAINING FIELD. BLACKSTONE SOLD HIS TITLE TO THE LAND BY A RIGHT OF POSSESSION GAINED PRIOR TO THE SETTLEMENT OF BOSTON IN 1630. .
In the heart of the busy city stands this beautiful natural park of 48 acres. It is the oldest public park in the country and there are historical associations connected with nearly every foot of the ground. In April, 1633, the General Court of the Province granted this "training field" or "Common" to William Blackstone to enjoy forever .. The next year Black- stone sold the land to the town of Boston for $150.00, reserv- ing an orchard of 6 acres and his homestead, a small cot- tage, which occupied the present site of the Puritan Club. At that time the Common extended East as far as Beacon Street at its intersection with Tremont Street, and South as far as Mason Street. At the same time Blackstone re- linquished all his right to the peninsula of Boston where he had been a "hermit settler" for several years prior to the Founding of Boston by Winthrop. For two hundred years following the founding of Boston, the Common was used as a training field for the militia and as a pasture ground for cattle. We are apt to think that the time when the Common was used for pasturage was very remote-but it was in 1830, when Harrison Gray Otis, Mayor of Boston, signed the or- der prohibiting its further use for that purpose. Only re- cently (1913) an aged lady died, who as a girl drove her neighbor's cows daily from North Street, North End, to the Common. Up to 1646 every Bostonian might pasture his
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cows there, but that year a vote was passed at "Town Meet- ing" that only four men should be allowed the use of the Common for that purpose. For the first 100 years this now beautiful and pleasing Park, was used as a "Dump" where the citizens deposited every conceivable sort of rubbish. There was no Health Department in those early days. A town order required that every houesholder should keep the street in front of his dwelling clean, and should also dispose of the rubbish. The result was that householders hired the farmers, who brought in provisions from the country to carry. away their street sweepings, and these country men de- posited their loads of refuse on the nearest vacant lot, which of course, was the Common. The Tremont Street Mall was one offensive Dump from one end to the other. As a writer remarked, "with our modern ideas of hygiene we may well stand aghast at the spectacle of some of the things that then menaced the source of the town's milk supply." In the year 1638 an effort was made by some citizens to get possession of this land and cut it up into small tracts for building pur- poses on the plea "to supply men that want land and have deserved it." They endeavored to get the General Court to sanction the scheme. But Governor Winthrop took prompt and decided action against it, and largely through his influence the Common was saved for all time as a public park. When the town of Boston became a city and the Charter was drawn up, a clause was inserted making the Common public property forever, and thus it is impossible for the city to sell or give it away. Originally there were but few trees on the Common.
People who lived in Boston in 1830 have related that it was then a large field "thickly dotted with daisies and dan- delions, that served to attract an army of lovers of greens in the Springtime, with their baskets, who found no limit to the supply of tasty vegetables." Later, walks were laid out, shade trees bordering these walks were planted and the rough and uneven surface was worked over into smooth and undulating lawns. There are now five beautiful walks en- circling the Common, known as Park Street, Beacon Street, Charles Street, Boylston Street and Tremont Street Malls. Above these walks rise large and stately elm trees, and there are benches scattered along their entire length, which are well occupied during the hot summer days. One of the cross walks on the Common is known as the "Long Walk," ex-
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tending from Joy Street to the Common to the corner of Tremont and Boylston Streets. Near this walk and at the foot of Flag Staff Hill, there stood until the winter 1876, a mammoth tree with wide spreading branches, and known far and wide as the "Old Elm." It was certainly the oldest in- habitant of the "Hub." Its age was never definitely ascer- tained, but it is believed to have been a large tree when Gov- ernor Winthrop founded Boston. In 1755, it was a very old tree, and people then called it decrepit. It was seventy-two feet high, and its trunk measured 22 1-2 feet in circumfer- ence, one foot above the ground. It went bravely down to death in that severe winter of 1876. An iron fence surrounds the spot where once it stood, and a shoot of the old tree is now growing there. In 1728, under the Shadow of the Old Elm, a duel was fought with rapiers, in which Henry Phillips, a nephew of Peter Faneuil, killed Benjamin Woodbridge, the quarrel resulting from a love affair. Following this tragedy the Legislature of the Province passed a most stringent law against duelling. Woodbridge was buried in the Granary Burying Ground and near the fence on Tremont Street. There is much of tragedy connected with the history of Bos- ton Common, but once in a while there is a humorous inci- dent, a pleasant relief from much that is gruesome. General Goffe was a Major General in Cromwell's army and was one of the officers who signed the death warrant of King Charles, the First. Upon the restoration of the monarchy in Eng- land in 1660, by the accession of Charles the Second to the throne, General Goffe, General Whally and many others fled to America, where they were known as "Regicides." Orders were sent to Massachusetts Bay Colony for their arrest, and officers of the Crown came over from England for that pur- pose, but the "regicides" had the sympathy and good will of the Colonists, who concealed them for years. Many of the Regicides settled in the little town of Hadley in the Con- necticut Valley, and among them General Goffe. At one time when he was in Boston, a fencing master from Eng- land, erected a stage on the Common, on which he walked for several days, defying any man to fight him with swords. Goffe accepted the challenge. He procured a huge cheese which he wrapped in a linen cloth to be used as a shield, and arming himself with a mop, filled with muddy water from the gutter, he appeared on the platform. The fencing master made a thrust at him, which Goffe received in the cheese in
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which he held the sword, until he had smirched his antago- nist with mud. The enraged fencing master caught up a broad sword, when Goffe exclaimed, "Stop, sir, hitherto you see I have only played with you; but if you come at me with the broad sword, know that I will certainly take your life." The alarmed fencing-master cried out, as. he dropped his sword. "Who can you be? You must be either Goffe or Whalley, or the Devil, for there were no other men in Eng- land who could beat me." In the early days executions were common spectacles and the Common was frequently used for that purpose, the gallows being erected there in 1644. Two criminals were executed there in 1659, and in that same year two young men named William Robertson and Marmaduke Stevenson, were led from the Boston jail. with ropes around their necks, their only crime being that they were Quakers. A young woman, named Mary Dyer, was taken with them to be hanged, for the same offence. She was the daughter of the Secretary of State of Rhode Island. Her son pleaded . for her life, and she was reprieved and went away with him. But the next Spring she returned, defied the laws, and was executed on Boston Common. The extreme and cruel sever- ity of the laws towards Quakers caused a reaction in public sentiment, and the people demanded a repeal of the bloody enactments, which was done in 1661, and the Quakers there- by achieved a triumph. The Records show that fourteen per- sons were executed on the Common for the crimes of rob- bery and murder. Four British soldiers were shot there for desertion and several persons accused of witchcraft were ex- ecuted there. In 1740, it was proposed to build a market on the Common, but this was given up and the site of Faneuil Hall chosen. Drake in his "Landmarks of Boston" recalls the fact "that a party of the forces that captured Louisburg assembled on the Common: the troops that conquered Que- bec were recruited on the Common by General Amherst; it was the mustering place for the conflicts which ushered in the Revolution: and the fortified camp which held the be- leagured town in subjection. In that dreary winter of 1775 there were over 1700 redcoats behind their earthworks on the Common, waiting for Washington to attack the town." On Flagstaff Hill was a square redoubt, and near the Frog Pond, was a Powder House. There were trenches along what is now Charles River Mall,-then, the water front of the Common. and where now the pensive tramp slumbers
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